Cynthia Barnett’s book Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S. coupled with her recent presentation at the University of Central Florida hopefully will make Florida growers aware of irrigation technologies which can add both convenience and conservation to their operations.
In her presentation at UCF, Ms. Barnett noted that flood irrigation techniques dominate Florida because of cost. She also stated that “Helping farmers achieve efficiency could give us millions of gallons of water per day.” Likewise, Ms. Barnett stated that micro-irrigation may serve as a possible conservation solution.
We at Net Irrigate agree with Ms. Barnett’s sentiment. We would also like to add that in addition to not applying water directly to the root zone; flood irrigation is wasteful because it presently requires the human eye to discern when water has covered an entire field. In many areas, such as the mid-south, it is not uncommon for a farmer to have to manage at least twenty flood flow irrigation pumps. Due to the spread out geographic nature of agriculture, water runoffs typically occur because farmers must travel to flood irrigated fields to determine if irrigation has completed. Additionally, farmers then must physically shut down the associated pump. Because agriculture is a time consuming business, it may be several hours before a farmer can travel to a field to discern optimal irrigation and shut down a pump. The detrimental result is in unnecessary pumping hours and wasted water.
While not nearly as efficient as an entire micro-irrigation system, the NetIrrigate® Telemetry Box is a much more inexpensive solution which can conserve water, energy, and add convenience to a farming operation. The NetIrrigate® Telemetry Box has been installed on several flood irrigation systems in Southeast Missouri and Arkansas. When water arrives to certain points in the field, a text message or phone call is sent to the grower. The grower may then flip out his/her cell phone and shut down their pump from anywhere!
Net Irrigate thanks Ms. Barnett for making more people aware of the potential crisis situation facing our nation and commend her on her research efforts thus far.
0 Responses to “Water Problems Not Only for the West”